Applebee’s suffers data breach

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LINCOLN, Neb. — Sidney Applebee’s is one of the several franchise-owned restaurants across 15 states that were affected by a credit card breach.

According to RMH Franchise, owner of the Sidney restaurant, the company became aware of the breach, Feb. 13. Unauthorized software was placed on the point-of-sale system at certain locations they own to capture payment card information.

Customers of 43 Ohio Applebee’s locations from Cincinnati to Toledo — including restaurants in Sidney, Troy, Lima and Dayton — were affected by the data breach between Dec. 6, 2017, through Jan. 2, 2018. Certain customers’ names, credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates and card verification codes could have been obtained. However, payments made online or with the restaurants’ self-pay tabletop devices were not affected.

“The security and privacy of our guests’ payment card data remains a top priority. After discovering the incident on Feb. 13, 2018, RMH promptly took steps to ensure that it had been contained,” RMH said in part on its corporate website.

What the franchise is doing about the credit card breach is bringing in “third-party cyber security experts” to assist in the investigation and notifying law enforcement. The website says they plan to continue to cooperate with the law enforcement’s investigation, closely monitor RMH’s systems and review security measures to prevent this from happening again.

RMH recommends customers to monitor payment card statements closely and if an unauthorized charge appears to immediately notify the bank which issued the card. The website notes that cardholders are generally not responsible for unauthorized charges, via payment card network rules.

For information, visit https://www.rmhfranchise.com/dataincident/ which also contains identity theft protection information. Customers may also contact RMH’s call center at 888-765-7357 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday.

By Sheryl Roadcap

[email protected]

Reach the writer at 937-538-4823.

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